by Brenda Novak
She breathed shallowly for several seconds, listening for any noise before deciding she had to take advantage of the time she had. She could always try to steal a key to the center and come back in the middle of the night when no one was around, but she’d never stolen anything in her life and felt that would be going too far. She was just taking a quick peek at her own file. Certainly there wasn’t any harm in that.
Patting the wall, she finally encountered a switch and flooded the room with light so bright she felt sure the whole world would see it—and Lydia would come stomping up the stairs to stop her.
But that was unrealistic, and she knew it. The windows overlooked the woods in back.
Calmer now, Hope wandered from room to room, reading the labels on the various filing cabinets.
Trish was well organized, which was going to make her search easy. Every drawer was marked by year, and the charts and files inside were alphabetical.
Hope found the year she’d given birth to Autumn in the middle room and yanked open the file drawer.
Sharp, Smith, Sutter, Taggert, Tanner…Hope thought her heart might jump out of her chest when she came upon her own name. She quickly pulled the file from its place. Inside she found a record of her visits to the birth center, her height and weight through those last two months, a few notes from Lydia about her general health and progress, and a record of her delivery, but nothing on Autumn. Checking the drawer again, she found another file labeled, “Tanner, Hope (baby),” but it was empty.
Hope stared at the empty manila folder, wondering why someone would make a file for nothing. She couldn’t imagine Devon, who’d been the receptionist the summer she’d had Autumn, doing it. She couldn’t see Trish doing it, either. Lydia had always demanded an efficient staff. Which meant there had once been something in the file. But what? Her baby’s adoption records? If so, where had they gone? And why?
Turning the folder in her hands, Hope noticed a telephone number written in pencil on the front flap. It had no area code, which made her think it might be local.
Was it connected to Autumn? More than likely, the file had simply been used as a message pad. But it was the only thing there, so she tore it off, stuffed it in the back pocket of her jeans and was just returning both files to their rightful place when something she’d seen in her delivery record made her turn back to it.
Lydia had written about Autumn’s birth, but part of what she’d recorded didn’t match Hope’s memory of the event. For starters, Lydia made no mention of having induced labor. According to her notes, Hope had called her at ten o’clock that night, saying her contractions were only a few minutes apart.
Hope had never called Lydia. Lydia had contacted her and told her it was time to deliver the baby. She’d said she was worried that Hope’s placenta was starting to deteriorate. But there was no mention of that, either. And they’d been alone, yet Lydia claimed Rita, another midwife who’d been working at the center back then, had assisted her with the delivery.
Hope studied Lydia’s flowing script, wondering what it all meant. Had Lydia confused her with someone else? Had she waited so long to record the details of Autumn’s birth that she’d forgotten? Or had there been some other reason to…
Hope was so engrossed in her thoughts that she almost didn’t hear the sound of a car on the gravel circular drive out front. When she did, she snapped her head up and listened more closely, immediately recognizing the hum of an engine…and then silence.
Someone else was here. Jamming the folders back where they belonged, she closed the file drawer as quietly as possible and rushed for the lightswitch. The light could easily go unnoticed to someone approaching from the front, but she wasn’t about to push her luck. She’d seen all she was going to see, anyway. Now she needed to get out.
Dashing down the stairs, she heard a car door slam and stopped abruptly. She knew she couldn’t beat whoever it was past the front entrance. She was trapped. She’d have to wait until—”
“Hope?”
Parker Reynolds’s voice shattered the silence she’d tried so hard not to destroy, making Hope’s knees go weak.
“Hope? It’s Parker,” he hollered. “Where are you?”
* * *
PARKER TOLD HIMSELF not to worry. He’d cleaned out the files and burned everything that could possibly be problematic. Hope could search through every piece of paper the center possessed, and she still wouldn’t find anything. But being safe in his web of lies didn’t make him feel any better for spinning them. Especially when he remembered the trust she’d finally given him by letting him hold her the night before.
If he told her about Dalton, he could finally feel right with her and with the world. The temptation to do so had zipped through his mind at intervals all day, every time he thought of her. But at what cost? Dalton stood to lose the very foundation of his life. Lydia stood to lose her good reputation and the center. His fellow employees stood to lose their jobs. There were probably other ramifications, as well, consequences Parker hadn’t even considered yet.
And still he was tempted to tell her.
He hated a liar. He hated being a liar even more.
“Hope? Are you coming?” he called again, wondering if she was going to make him search for her.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked, surprising him by her closeness when she finally appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She glanced at Lydia’s closed door almost as if she expected Lydia to come out and confront her, but Parker already knew Lydia wouldn’t. That was why she’d called him. So she wouldn’t be forced to play the offended party, and Hope could continue to work at the center as though she’d never broken into the storage area.
“Your car’s around back,” he said.
“You came in the front.” She folded her arms and tilted her head to one side, studying him. “Lydia called you, didn’t she.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because she didn’t want to deal with Hope. She felt too guilty. But he couldn’t tell her that. “Because it’s getting late and she wanted me to see you safely home.”
“I can find my own way home.”
He couldn’t help admiring her indomitable spirit. Dalton possessed her strength and fortitude, he realized, and suddenly saw her background in a whole new light. Hope might have come from a polygamist cult, but she’d escaped her past and done something with her life. She’s a wonderful person, the woman he’d spoken to at Valley View Hospital had said, and he knew she was right. Hope had a good character. He could think of a lot worse legacies to give a child. “She’s worried about you.”
A look of confusion replaced the belligerence on her face. “I don’t get it. I don’t get any of this.”
“That’s because there’s nothing to get,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He waited for her to pull around from the back, then followed her car to the cabin, grateful that Faith would be home this time. He wasn’t sure he could trust himself alone with Hope Tanner again, despite everything he stood to lose.
“Thanks,” she said with a wave as soon as they arrived, and jogged up the front steps, her keys at the ready. She obviously didn’t plan on having him come in to check things out.
He felt a moment’s relief and started to back up when something caught his eye. What was it? Hesitating, he squinted to see beyond the beam of his headlights and noticed that several limbs of the pine tree closest to the drive had recently been torn off. They hung at an odd angle, limp and lifeless, and some red paint marked the trunk.
Had there been an accident in the past twenty-four hours? He was just getting out to investigate when Hope came running from the cabin.
“Parker! She’s gone! Faith’s gone!”
He thought she was coming to him, but she veered off at the last second and went to her own car. She had her purse and her keys, but she was shaking so badly she could scarcely unlock the door.
Parker hurried over to her. “What do you mean? Where has she gon
e?”
“Superior, of course.” She jerked away when he tried to catch her hand. “But I’m not going to let him hurt her. I p-promised her I’d be there for her.”
“Are you sure she’s not staying with Gina?”
She nodded, still fumbling with her keys. “She was here asleep when I left. And just look at the cabin! Everything’s turned over and smashed. And—” she managed to get her door open “—and Arvin wrote a few choice words about her and me on the wall.”
“You can’t go there alone,” Parker said.
“I go everywhere alone,” she replied, and tried to slam the door, but he stood in the way.
“I’m going with you.”
“You can’t. It’s hours and hours away. And you have to take care of your son.”
“He knew I’d be getting back late from Taos today, so Bea’s there. I’ll call Dalton’s grandparents and insist they step in and help for a while. I’ve never asked anything of them before. They can do that much. Dalton will be fine.”
“But what about the clinic? And the fund-raiser?”
Parker thought of Lydia and how bad she felt about the past—so bad she’d risked hiring Hope at the clinic. We owe her that much. “This is where she’d want me to be,” he said. “She’ll just have to take over on the fund-raiser, maybe call in a few favors from Devon and the other midwives.”
“But I don’t know what’s going to happen or how long I’ll be gone,” Hope argued. “I don’t know if—” she blinked, obviously fighting tears “—if Faith’s going to be okay. I gotta go. Get out of my way.”
“Hope.” He said her name forcefully to get her to calm down. “You can’t take off like this. Give me a minute, and I’ll drive you to Superior. We’ll find Faith together, okay? We’ll make sure she’s safe, I promise.”
Her eyes turned toward him, and he read her pain and doubt. “This isn’t your problem,” she whispered.
Cupping her chin, he tilted her face and felt his heart lurch at the same time. “It is now. Let’s go inside so you can pack a small suitcase. We might be gone a while.”
* * *
HOPE DIDN’T SPEAK for the first few hours. She sat rigidly in the passenger seat of the truck, staring out the windshield as though she could will her way to Superior at the speed of light if only she concentrated hard enough.
“How long were you gone tonight when you went to the birth center?” Parker asked.
Hope’s posture relaxed a little, but he could tell by the strain in her face that she was extremely fatigued. “Not long. A couple of hours at the most.”
“Okay, and it took a while for us to pack and make arrangements. Still, they can’t be very far ahead of us. Are you sure they’d go back right away?”
She bit her lip while she considered his question. “I can’t imagine Arvin doing anything else. He doesn’t have much money. The church only gives him enough to pay his bills and meet the most basic needs of his families. He wouldn’t want to squander money on a motel. Besides, I think he’d want to go where he feels powerful, and that’s definitely Superior. He’s like a fish out of water anywhere else.”
“What if he was too tired to drive? He might already have spent the day in a car, trying to reach Enchantment.”
“I hope he’s going to Superior,” she said. “I have no idea where else to look.”
Parker didn’t comment. He knew she had to be imagining her beautiful young sister in a motel room with her uncle. The image that flashed through his mind turned his stomach. “If they are going back to Superior, where do you think he’ll take her?”
“I don’t know. He could take her to any of his wives’ homes.”
“And they’d cover for him, even if Faith didn’t want to be there?”
“I think Ila Jane would help her if she could, but I’m sure Arvin realizes that, too, so he won’t go there until he feels he has Faith under his control again.”
“Maybe we should call this Ila Jane. Or your parents or someone, explain what’s happened and tell them to look out for Faith.”
“I thought of that. But…”
“But?”
“I tried to talk to them before I left St. George. They’re too blind to Arvin’s faults. They won’t believe Faith’s in any real danger, so they won’t interfere.” Her words came out as almost a whisper, and Parker felt a strong desire to step in and protect her. She’d been fighting this battle on her own for long enough, dammit. It was time these so-called religious men quit abusing women and faced someone their own size.
“What about the police?”
“Who would we call? The Enchantment Police? The Superior Police?”
Parker rolled down his window to get some fresh air and to help him stay awake. They were already entering Arizona, which meant the air was much warmer than it had been in the high wilderness of New Mexico. “If they’ve left Enchantment, the Enchantment police couldn’t do anything. It would have to be the Superior police.”
“Good luck. They try to ignore the polygamist population as much as possible. They won’t do anything unless we can prove that a crime has occurred. And by the time we do and they respond—” she shrugged “—it’s a gamble whether they’ll be any help at all.”
“I still think we should call them. Maybe we can talk them into keeping an eye on Arvin’s residences. Do you know where all his wives live?”
“Not all of them, no. Most houses, once they become the property of the church, stay that way for years and years, but families can be shuffled around because of overcrowding or whatever.”
“But it’s a tight-knit community, right? With a little help, we can find her.”
“You have to understand that these people won’t be on our side.”
And she was going to drive into that, knowing she had no support from the police or anyone else. “You’re an unusual woman,” he said, shaking his head.
“I know. That’s what you don’t like about me.”
He sent another glance her way, remembering her kiss, and realized she couldn’t be more wrong. “I like everything about you,” he said. “That’s what has me worried.”
* * *
“I’VE THOUGHT of someone I want to call,” Hope announced just after they crossed the Utah border. The sun was coming up, but she hadn’t given in and slept at all, so she looked as tired as Parker felt. They’d both been awake for close to twenty-four hours.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Bonner.”
Parker’s brows shot up in surprise. “Why Bonner? He won’t help us, will he?”
“I don’t know, but after what he put me through, I think he owes me,” she said.
“Do you have his number?” Parker asked, feeling an unexpected twinge of jealousy.
“It’s listed.”
“What if he already knows Arvin came after Faith and supports him in it?”
“I don’t think he’d agree with any type of violence. He’s pompous and full of himself, but he’s not crazy like Arvin.” She sighed. “In any case, it’s worth a try.”
Parker had to agree. They needed some kind of ally or, once they arrived in Superior, Arvin could hide Faith almost indefinitely.
Pulling over at the first gas station he could find, he stood next to the telephone booth, staring off toward the highway, as Hope called information for Bonner Thatcher. His cell phone battery had died, and in his hurry to start after Arvin, he’d left his charger behind.
“You want me to make the call?” he asked when she rested her forehead on the metal face of the phone, instead of dialing the number he’d jotted down for her.
Closing her eyes, she rubbed both temples. “No, I have to do it.”
Parker found the proper change in his pocket and handed it to her. She dropped the money in the slot and dialed.
“Hello? Charity?…It’s me…Have you heard from Faith? Do you know where Arvin might be?” She shook her head at Parker to indicate Charity didn’t know anything about Faith or Ar
vin. “Can I speak to Bonner, then?…What?…Charity, that’s not true. You don’t have anything to worry about. Listen to me, I—”
Suddenly she pulled the receiver away from her ear and stared down at it as though it had bitten her. “She hung up on me,” she said, her eyes lifting to his.
Parker set the receiver back on its hook. “She’s not willing to cross your father?”
“She told me to stay away from Bonner.”
“But she’s already sharing him with three other women.”
“She said she’s not willing to share him with me.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IT WASN’T MUCH of a motel, but they’d been on the road for fourteen hours. They were exhausted, and the Old West Inn was the best they were going to find in a town so small it wasn’t even marked on the map Parker had purchased at the gas station.
Loaded with the duffel bags that held what they’d brought of their belongings, Parker held the door for Hope, frowning at the drab orange bedspreads, the laminated furniture, the brown shag carpet, the faint smell of mold.
“Nice,” she said dryly.
“It’s not the Hilton,” he replied. But he wasn’t about to suggest they change their plans. He’d spent two whole hours convincing Hope they’d be better off stopping for a few hours’ rest.
“Which bed do you want?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
He carried her bag to the bathroom so she’d have her toiletries, kicked off his shoes and called information for the police department in Superior. A Sergeant Peters answered the phone and said he’d have someone drive by the list of addresses Hope had given Parker while they were on the road. He also said they’d look for a red car with some paint damage. But there was no real conviction in his voice, and Parker knew Hope was right. The police felt little need to get involved when the only crime that had occurred, so far, had happened in New Mexico. “How do you know she was abducted against her will?” Peters had wanted to know. “People wander off every day, especially women that age.”
